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Intro Post
Apr. 18th, 2009 05:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peskipiksiMy real name is Dani; my unhusband calls me Pixie, which he derived from my username, which I stole from Harry Potter. That is the worst introduction ever.
I have no faith. Sometimes I blame it on my lifelong battle with chronic pain. Everywhere I turned, growing up, the story about God and the story about my condition were the same: "you just need to hang in there and have FAITH, it will all WORK OUT/you will BE CURED!" I no longer believe either one. Whether I "have faith," in a Divine being or in an eventual cure, there is Stuff To Be Done and I have a deep-seated need to Do It. My thumb-twiddling faith-having does not Do Anything.
I grew up with a mother who had left Catholicism because she wanted something more experiential and Goddess-centered and a father whose religion was "I'm going to the woods by myself, see you later." What we actually practiced was a sort of neo-Wiccan mostly-intuitive hodgepodge with a healthy dose of "I wonder what happens when we...." I still recommend this approach to folk who, like me, find they have all the magical ability of a Frigidaire.
I'm practical to the point of pedantry (alliteration, whee!), and can often use a smack upside the head to remind me that ritual and mystery have their place in human experience - including MY human experience. I do zazen. I never remember holidays. I live in a hundred-year-old boarding house on the shore of Lake Michigan with a deaf odd-eyed Turkish Angora, a Rottweiler with no "mean" setting, a German Shepherd, and two aging hippies. My car is old enough to vote.
I have no faith. Sometimes I blame it on my lifelong battle with chronic pain. Everywhere I turned, growing up, the story about God and the story about my condition were the same: "you just need to hang in there and have FAITH, it will all WORK OUT/you will BE CURED!" I no longer believe either one. Whether I "have faith," in a Divine being or in an eventual cure, there is Stuff To Be Done and I have a deep-seated need to Do It. My thumb-twiddling faith-having does not Do Anything.
I grew up with a mother who had left Catholicism because she wanted something more experiential and Goddess-centered and a father whose religion was "I'm going to the woods by myself, see you later." What we actually practiced was a sort of neo-Wiccan mostly-intuitive hodgepodge with a healthy dose of "I wonder what happens when we...." I still recommend this approach to folk who, like me, find they have all the magical ability of a Frigidaire.
I'm practical to the point of pedantry (alliteration, whee!), and can often use a smack upside the head to remind me that ritual and mystery have their place in human experience - including MY human experience. I do zazen. I never remember holidays. I live in a hundred-year-old boarding house on the shore of Lake Michigan with a deaf odd-eyed Turkish Angora, a Rottweiler with no "mean" setting, a German Shepherd, and two aging hippies. My car is old enough to vote.
